dual personalities

What have you been reading lately? Besides reading about Quakers (see yesterday’s post), I have started and stopped several books that I just couldn’t get into. It is so hard to find good fiction. These books were all well-written, but the characters just didn’t engage me. I am no longer “the good girl” who feels obligated to finish a book once I’ve started. I’m over that–are you?

Even though I have already read Moby-Dick, I read Why Read Moby-Dick? by Nathaniel Philbrick. It made me want to read Moby-Dick again! I found a copy of the author’s In the Heart of the Sea at an estate sale, and I plan to read this account of the real-life whaling ship Essex and the whale that attacked it. It ought to be good.

I have just started Penelope Fitzgerald’s The Gate of Angels. She is so good and so very funny (in a very British way) but you have to pay attention. She is not an easy read. I’ll let you know if I make it through.

I have a few new “coffee table” books which I have been enjoying.  American Writers At Home is wonderful, as you can imagine. If you want to buy yourself a present, I recommend this. I got mine used on Amazon.

I am always doing research you know, so I have been delving into this old chestnut. DeVoto is pretty darn good.

This is an old favorite that I took off my shelf–Roger Angell’s memoir of growing up in New York City as the son and step-son of New Yorker stalwarts Katharine White and E.B. White. He is one of those guys like whom they do not make anymore.

What are you reading?